Hawaii Journal, 7/11/91, total eclipse of the sun

7/11/91, total eclipse of the sun. I actually saw the solar flare of the sun’s corona with the naked eye, red verging on magenta. And I could see the surface of the moon. Totality lasted four minutes but it felt both timeless, and only one second long before the diamond ring burst forth. On the beach a couple was getting married.

We sat within the sea wall arms of the place of refuge and offered our very consciousness to the sun and moon. But we didn’t see the moon’s shadow descend, due to the light cloud cover. We were lucky, as the coast was socked in with fog earlier in the morning. It actually parted just as the eclipse began. It was as if we had made a bargain with the gods of weather.

Everything was bathed under a strange glowing light similar to candlelight. No sooner had the birds chattered and sung their songs to make the sun rise, they had to prepare again for the descent of darkness. As soon as they did that, they had to sing their morning song once again to make the sun rise. It seems they were confused as to which song to sing, and when. It was a very busy morning for the birds.  

I swam in the pool with my massive night-blooming cereus blossom, the size of my face, wearing a plumeria lei, visor and shades, I must have been a sight. I swam with the sleeping fish, mostly yellow tang, and manini, as the eclipse descended. 

The city of refuge was a perfect place to view the eclipse, there was a scattering of people. As totality descended you could hear everyone gasp, let go their breath, and a spontaneous cheer erupted as the diamond ring broke free. You could actually see the edge of the moon, the silhouette of the mountains and the craters. No metaphor about it. Nothing could prepare us for the actual experience, nothing.

Photographs don’t even come close to capturing it. It’s utterly magical, a strange glow, an umbra, followed by the penumbra. The air had gotten noticeably colder, and the wind stopped blowing, and the sea grew calm. Then the wind reversed directions, and the sea rose. Never have I seen such obvious cause and effect, such sheer power, the forces of gravity at work. You could actually see the direction of the solar wind radiating out from the corona. 

I think we had clearer weather here than at the main viewing place, which was packed as a penguin rookery. The couple getting married embraced, a group hug followed. It seemed that the sun took forever to come out from behind the moon. 

We stood on the pahoehoe, or female, or ropey lava with our backs to the sea, it was mirror-calm, a glassine pond, without a ripple. I didn’t need a snorkel to see the fish. There was a timelessness to the event, we felt bound to each other and wedded to time itself—suspended animation. No problem in understanding why primitive folks freaked out when there was an eclipse. It was a sublime event, a real harmonic convergence.

We went home, had toast with Cabernet Sauvignon jelly, and mimosas made from Eddie’s own tangelos and Napa Mumm champagne. We watched the televised event again. Eddie had pre-recorded it, but the cameras did not capture even half of what we witnessed or experience. However, it was wonderful to be able to replay the clips on the TV. They showed shots from the Maunakea Observatory. 

And to think we had clearer skies than the designated eclipse viewing spots on the northern Kona Coast. It’s a somehow fitting that we watched in the very place, Honaunau Bay, where Captain Cook met his untimely end in the Sandwich Islands (hold the Mayo). If only he had made it to this side of the bay, to the city of refuge, the Aili’i would have had to given him refuge, and he would’ve lived to tell the tale, instead of becoming the main course. Instead, he wound up in someone’s stew pot. 

I gave my night-blooming cereus blossoms, dream-white with lemon yellow stamens, so like ostrich feathers quivering at the site slightest breeze—as a gift to the sea.

Later on in the afternoon, I came back to snorkel in this same pool, there are two perfectly round lava pools here, the one I’m sitting in front of now, is a reflecting pool, higher than the sea. We sat between the two pools, a spot Ed had picked out. Those 6 AM scouting parties paid off, we had the best seats in the house. 

I also snorkeled in Honaunau Bay, entering it from the lava flow in front of the heiau. It was as magnificent as I had remembered, the most outrageous coral gardens on earth. I saw myriad unicorn fish, and a lot of fish I have never seen before. I braved swimming outside of the reef and was startled to see a strange creature in the canyon in front of me. I swam with the sea turtles for nearly a half an hour. They led me out to sea.

A couple I had met earlier, played tag with this creature, he said he tried to hitch a ride but the turtle’s shell was slippery. We swam out around the point where the bay drops off 30 feet and we found an even larger spotted turtle.

Unicorn fish, orange and black and blue and white scribbled file fish, an orange trumpet fish, surgeonfish, Moorish idols, threadfin and long-nosed butterflyfish, ornate wrasses, several types of parrotfish, Achilles’ tang, sargent majors, blue jacks, anglerfish, purple surgeons, Picassofish, or humuhumu triggerfish, angelfish, damselfish... I spotted at least 50 species and some that I can’t even find in my fish books and I’m not including the gobies, the lizard fish, the tetras, the neons, and all the other aquatic fish we’re familiar with. mudskippers, a turkey fish, I forgot about the grunts, the coris, and the blennies and sculpins.

The Hawaiian kids that I swim with earlier, thrashed about in the lava pool, once a sacred fishing pond of the royalty. A boy takes off his snorkel and turns it into a conch horn. The sound reverberates up the mountains. My day is now complete. I leave my lei at the heiau altar. Yesterday’s ti leaf and coral intact. There are many more leis, offerings to the older gods as well as to the gods of science. 

It’s beginning to rain as it does each afternoon. And I am thankful to be alive on such a day as this.

My butterfly-fish drawings are 24x36”

• ON ACHIEVING TOTALITY

Hawaii Journal, 7/7/91 Big Island, Hawaii, eclipse madness

7/7/91 I’ve been in Hawaii a week and I have no real writing to speak up. On the Big Island, at my cousin Ed’s place, I feel at home at last. I fall asleep for a few-hour nap after lunch. Island salmon grilled in the yard. Divine. Maybe it was the rum punch at noon.

Later, we went down the hill to Kona and sat in a bar overlooking the bay, the open air is redolent with moisture, an incoming storm. Rain, and eclipse countdown. I try not to get too excited, it might be overcast. I admire ripe mangoes against green miniature suns, and listen to the Japanese doves cooing, their quiet call has become a signature backdrop sound of the islands.

At Ed’s place in Napoopoo, we are miles above the sea. It’s been five years since I’ve been to Ed’s place, and everything seems so familiar, as if I had never left. The geckos chirping, trying to lay their eggs on the ceiling again. We can’t explain the properties of gravity to them. Little eggshells on the coffee table. I read that Jack London wrote 1000 words a day. How did he ever do it here? I’m positively narcoleptic.

Evidence of eclipse frenzy everywhere. From Tshirts to designer cookies. The camera crews arrive on our same flight, looking as disoriented as us. Do you to a late airport shuttle pick up, we barely caught our flights at all. All Aloha air flights were booked solid and they added 60% more flights said my cousin Ed, landing and taking off every 10 minutes. It’s a zoo here. The buzz in the air is palpable. Eclipse madness.